Isolation
by CortessaBlatt
Summary: The horrors of Goto’s Yacht are more than you may have imagined... A recollection of Sloe’s childhood. Oneshot.


**Isolation**

_The horrors of Goto's Yacht are more than you may have imagined… A recollection of Sloe's childhood._

**Rated PG13 **– Slavery, sex, and whatever else.

**Disclaimer: **I only own Sloe and the idea for Sloe. The idea for this story has been brewing, and finally a roleplay with my friend convinced me to put it down.

**Isolation**

The Ebon Hawk was cold and silent that night; Atton had kicked on the autopilot immediately after Nar Shaddaa and now the ship was unwavering while he slept in his captain's chair. Nothing broke the silence but the occasional, faint bleeping from the guidance consol. Nothing stirred, in exception of Bao-Dur's Remote, who occasionally rocked softly in the corner, the tiny red light that was his photoreceptor dulled to blackness. Space was not cold, but somewhat warm, for the crew had previously filled all energy sources to maximum; thus, the heater was running full-tilt. Only the farthest corners and the deepest cracks were left chilled. But while it was calm and quiet, few of the current occupants slept. The droids, of course, could not sleep; Visas and Kreia were deep in meditation; the beautiful exile, Relina, was on patrol; Bao-Dur was working tirelessly on the ship, and the newest members of the crew, Mira and Sloegen, were too wary of their surroundings to sleep. Mira hovered in the main hold, glancing up every so often to check for intruders, and Sloe remained in the garage, alone.

Relina was unsure what to make of these new members. Mira seemed restless, shady, and cautious, as if she had been hunted for far too long. But her eyes were soft and her heart was open – she was a good person. And the Force thrummed thick and heavy beneath her skin, raw and untouched, a reservoir of preserved power. She would make a great Jedi, if Relina trained her.

Sloe, on the other hand, was a mystery. She knew only his name, Sloegen Gordon, and that he had been discovered a smelly, drunken mess in the ventilation systems of Goto's yacht. He claimed he had lived there for years (this much was evident from the mass piles of clothing and food containers in the corner). He hid his nature well behind smart, crude jokes and a smooth, unfaltering voice, and she was unsure if he would take well to her questions. He moved silkily, with no uncertain pauses or backtracking, his gaze was liquid silver and his mouth was always fixed into a sassy smirk. Everything about him was slick… even his black hair, which was cut short around the ears and smoothed back impeccably. The seemingly effortless grace was unnatural to her; she sought to understand why. In its own way, he was more alluring than Mira and her shady eyes, in his elegance and saucy language and cool, unruffled calm. It wasn't right.

So, following the natural path for her rounds, she arrived at the garage area in due time. He looked up instantaneously from the small shard of wood he had been whittling with the short-blade vibroblade he had insisted upon bringing with him upon his escape from the yacht. He sat on a plasteel cylinder, with one knee bent to offer support to his arm, and the other stretched straight out, long and gangly-looking, into the darkness of night. He smiled at her, but she couldn't read the warmth behind it. He motioned to her with a gloved hand and she sat before him. He glanced at his work, meticulously cutting away another notch in the shard of wood, before he looked back up at her.

"What?"

She started, somehow astonished that he would address her first. She shook her head to clear it and mumbled for a moment before she said, "Nothing. I just want to talk to you."

"Okay, shoot," Sloe replied calmly.

Relina stared blankly. "Shoot…?"

"I know you want to ask me a bunch of questions, so…" Sloe grinned, tilting his head and lounging back on the plasteel cylinder. "Why don't you talk to me?"

"How'd you…?"

"Atton." He laughed. "Tipped me off the moment we arrived. 'Watch out,' he said, 'she'll badger you into oblivion.'"

Relina gasped and her face grew red. "That bastard…" she grumbled under her breath. She made a mental note to strangle their pilot as soon as she could.

Sloe laughed again, openly; his voice was like a cool, oily ring, and it fascinated her. His peals of laughter were strung together like chords on a harp – blending together into something enchanting. Not like the obscene, silly giggling of Atton or the deep, gentle chuckling of Bao-Dur, or the girlish, soft titters of Mical. But something about that made him impersonal and downright creepy. She didn't like him, not like she liked Bao-Dur, or Mical, and most definitely not how she liked Atton, though Sloe resembled him a lot in many of the things he did.

Sloe waved a hand at her, snapping her from her thoughts. "Eh," he said. "I was kidding. I mostly guessed from the way you sat and closed me out."

"Sorry," she mumbled, now not only angry with Atton but embarrassed of herself.

He grinned lazily. "No big deal," he said honestly. "Here." He handed her an unlit cigarra. "I got a lecture on how not to light these from your resident Old Woman, but you get the same affect when you wear them down and chew."

She cocked an eyebrow. "I don't smoke." She placidly handed him back his cigarra.

Sloe pushed it back to her. "Everyone smokes," he said.

Relina bit her lip. "No, I don't." She pushed it back.

"You'll learn," he replied, and firmly pushed it into her hand. When her eyes flashed with irritated defiance, he grinned at her harshly. "You'll learn to love it."

She deflated, but only to put the cigarra in her back pocket. "Where'd you get so many of these things, anyway?" she asked casually.

He shrugged. "I lived in that vent and snuck out every night for supplies. I had a big horde of that stuff before you guys came along."

She pounced on the reference to the vents. "Yeah," she said with a breathless anticipation. "How'd you end up in those vents anyway?"

"It's a long story," he warned, though there was no sincere indication that he cared whether or not she heard it. He was just dragging on; this much was evident from the lounging position he took on the plasteel cylinder and the cigarra he pinched between his teeth.

She shook her head. "Tell me," she said. "I've gotten the truth out of everyone else so far – I want to hear about you."

Suddenly his eyes went dark. He looked uneasy for the first time and looked away. Gently, so not to startle him, she reached out and pressed a palm to his knee. "Tell me your story."

And so he did.

------

"I'm your average Nar Shaddaa kid; bastard with some sort of alien mixed deep in his veins, you know the type. I wouldn't be surprised if your pilot didn't have something in him, maybe Rodian or Zeltron or Chiss. It doesn't matter, though, does it? I'm digressing.

"I was born in the pits summit, the orange sector, which, as you know, I'm sure, is almost as bad as the red sector. 'The pits summit?' you may wonder, 'What does that mean?' I mean it's the peak of garbage, the very tip of the spike for injustice and poverty and slandering.

"I don't remember much about it. I was just a baby then. Most of what I do know was told to me by my master, who picked up my records on my block date. But that's far ahead.

"Apparently, my mother was just your everyday hooker. Wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, but beautiful. I think that's where the Twi'lek in me comes from; I've seen pictures… she's a dancer, one of the loveliest women I've ever seen, except for you… Anyway, she had a boyfriend and a day job (and a night job, if you get my meaning), so she felt things were pretty good for the orange sector.

"As I said, she wasn't the brightest bulb in the box…

"Her boyfriend was an Exchange thug. He killed people while she was sleeping around for money. It worked well – they'd both come home in a sweat and cool down by getting hot, if you understand. It's not a surprise that she got pregnant with me pretty quick – even now, I'm not sure if that Exchange man is really my father. He very well might not be.

"But the probability didn't matter to him. He sent a little assassination team to kill her and me. She was a good person and she ran, if not for herself, for me. She didn't get very far, but it was long enough for me to be born.

"The thugs saw profit in a kid like me. They killed my mother, took records, and snatched me. They put me in their little boot camp, taught me to walk and talk and smoke and clean things. Mind, I didn't actually smoke myself until I was much older, but the people around me did it so often I got used to the smell and taste and learned the right techniques. I think that saved me later on.

"Well, once I was old enough, they put me on the auction block. We never celebrated birthdays and I never learned my birth date, so I can't be sure how old I was. I think I was about six or seven. We set up in a warehouse in Nar Shaddaa; I was amazed at the amount of scum had turned up to buy children slaves.

"When it was my turn, people kept bidding and bidding, and I remember that I got so sleepy I sat down. The guard smacked me and made me stand up again, but by the time I was on my feet this Twi'lek woman had won.

"I will never forget her face. She wasn't a good woman at all. Her skin was this pale periwinkle color, and her eyes were this burning amber-green. I didn't like her, but my guard made me go to her anyway.

"I wasn't worth much, but only a certain crowd could afford to buy me. Children pleasure slaves always fetch a high price, and on that scale I was pretty low. Humans aren't so attractive.

"Yes, I was a pleasure slave at the age of seven. I don't want your pity, so don't look at me like that. People have lived worse lives and I was lucky to have a roof over my head.

"It wasn't so bad, though. When she wasn't using me she let me practice flying in this simulator on the ship… she lived on Goto's yacht. She also let me take target practice with her slug blaster in the target room. When she wasn't home, she locked me up with her pet kath hound. The kath hound stank like hell, but she was a nice thing and kept me warm at least. Also, there was this gizka in an aquarium beside my cage. I loathed the thing; it would stare at me all night and coo to me…

"I stayed with that Twi'lek for years. I don't remember how old I was when I was finally freed, but I know that I was at least a teenager. I know because her uses for me expanded and she stopped referring to me as 'little boy.'

"But she used me one night, but forgot to lock me back up with that kath hound. She went into the bathroom and took a bath. It was one of those old baths, the kind with the faucets and the water and the bubbles. I remember the bubbles… they floated up to the rim and all I could see was her head.

"At first, I didn't understand. I just stood there like a moron, waiting for her to come back and stick me in my cage. But she didn't come back. She stayed in that tub and I could hear the water splashing… The kath hound was asleep, but the gizka was still staring at me and cooing… cooing… cooing…

"I realized what I was left to do. Freedom called to me. I had never been free before. I knew it was now or never. At first, I just took the blaster off the counter, but it was just a slug blaster, and it wouldn't do any good. Then I remembered her vibroblade on the mantel…"

------

"Your vibroblade!" Relina gasped. She gazed down at the little weapon in his hands, the short-bladed vibroblade he had brought with him upon discovery. She had always thought he had stolen it.

Sloe grinned and shrugged. "Yeah, the vibroblade," he said coolly.

Her eyes grew wide. "What'd you do with it?" she asked, her voice suddenly very soft.

------

"I took it down off the mantel and I just kind of… stood there for a second with it in my hand. I had never held a melee weapon before, so it took me a moment to get a strong grip on it. I turned it on – I remember the faint whizzing noise it made and how the edges burned red. I touched it and it stung, so I knew it would work.

"That gizka kept staring at me, the stupid goggle-eyed thing. I remember that I picked it up and it just cooed dumbly. I killed that gizka… I cut it right between the eyes and across the throat. It just kind of gurgled– I think the damn thing was still trying to coo at me.

"I knew I could kill my master just as easily. I snuck into her bathroom, but she hadn't seen me anyway. Her eyes were closed. I crept up behind her and I slit her throat.

"I remember how she flailed and tried to sit up. But her hand slipped and she sank under and she never came back up. The bubbles turned all red and water splashed on the floor. I remember noticing vaguely how wet my feet were.

"I was sort of numb. I didn't really believe she was dead. But I still wanted to escape – I had to escape. I couldn't go out into the halls – the guards would recognize me. So I did the next best thing."

------

"The vent!" Relina cried. Sloe nodded.

------

"The vent. I crawled up into the vent and I was careful to replace the meshing. It was cold in there, but it would mask my smell and I knew I had it good. No one was going to check for me in the vent.

"I spent several years in that vent. I can't say how many – the years kind of melted together, so that I couldn't tell one day from the other. But at night I know I snuck out and stole food rations and such so that I wouldn't starve or die. And when I kept growing I stole new clothes, even though they were several sizes too big.

"And then Atton came along and heard me crawling around. You know the rest."

------

She sat there, breathless and unsure of what to say. He watched placidly, saying nothing that could particularly ruin him or save him. Relina shook her head sadly and slowly stood. Sloe followed suit.

"If you want me to leave…" he began to offer, but she held up a hand.

"You're not the person I thought you were," she said. "You… are more, and you are less. You have endured much, as have the rest of us."

He shook his head. "I'm nothing," he said. "You don't need to lie. I understand. You've suffered more than any of us, and a slave's tales are nothing compared to yours. Once we hit Onderon I can go and you won't hear from me ever again. But thank you. Thank you for freeing me."

She opened her mouth, but nothing came. Finally, she just shook his hand and stared into his eyes. "You're not going anywhere."

He said nothing, but his eyes questioned her. He frowned a little. He didn't pull his hand away, so she released him. "Why not?" he murmured.

"Because." She smiled. "I trust you."

------

**Author's Notes: **I don't expect many comments on this one. I know this isn't what you really want after my long absences. I like it and I don't like it; I kind of hold no ground on it, though the ending was like, OMGEWBLEH. I don't expect you guys to really care about Sloegen or anything, but, hey. You gotta know where he came from, right? No, he's not in love with Relina, she doesn't love him either. He's not very strong in the Force like Atton or Disciple or Mira. But I'm proud of Sloe. I like how he's developed and his backstory and how he got aboard the Ebon Hawk. He's not sob-story-ish, because he accepts his past and doesn't mourn for it and understands that he had it pretty good for what he was. He will play a role in Beyond the Horizon and will appear in pretty much every other KOTOR II fanfic I write. Why? To me, it's like he was just in the game and never got acknowledged or cut out or something.

Whatever. I'll stop ranting. Hope you found some inspiration in it or something.


End file.
